These Spots Flip Genders to Highlight Sexism in The Film Production World

Series by Women in Film Satirizes Misogyny in Hollywood

By

Alexandra Jardine

Published On

Jun 19, 2017

Editor's Pick

A new series of films by the production mentoring program of the Los Angeles chapter of Women In Film exposes how women are treated in Hollywood by putting men in their place instead.

"Flip the Script" takes some of the sexist experiences of women in the industry and re-enacts them verbatim, but with one crucial difference -- the gender roles are flipped. For example, in "Diva Director," seen here, a male director is patronized, laughed at and ignored by a female production crew when he turns up to direct a drama series (and of course, at first they don't even believe he is the director). In contrast, when a female director turns up and behaves like an obnoxious diva, she's revered as "awesome."

In another spot, "Mad Women," a team of female producers first pour cold water on an idea by man of using men who work in tech in a virtual reality campaign. However, when a young male assistant turns up with the coffee, they both ogle him and decide to use him in the project instead.

The series, which stars well-known actors including Lake Bell and Jerrika Hinton, is written and created by Ally Iseman ("American Housewife"), produced by Meredith Riley Stewart ("Scandal") and executive produced by Tessa Bell ("Life Inside Out"). All films were mixed and colored by 72andSunny's Hecho en 72.

Commented Iseman in a statement: "Our aim is to empower and educate, not point a finger. Many people do not even realize they are a part of the issue. We want to encourage them to emulate and celebrate advocates who are taking public action towards change. The goal of this series is to make itself irrelevant. Progress only occurs when the needle is pushed from sympathy to empathy and humor is a powerful tool to create that shift in perspective."